


Litany of the Fallen

by lost_spook



Category: Spooks | MI-5
Genre: 500 prompts, Angst, Gen, Spoilers, spooks being spooks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 19:16:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s always a price that they pay, those that survive, and those that don't...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Litany of the Fallen

**Author's Note:**

> Written for phantomlistener in the [500 Prompts Meme](http://lost-spook.livejournal.com/300554.html) \- #395 The bitterness of mortality & Spooks ensemble.
> 
> Spoilers for the entire series.

There’s always a price that they pay, those that survive and those that don’t. 

For those that do, it’s in a hundred small ways – and in that list of names nobody needs up on the wall when it’s engraved on their minds. Life goes on, relentlessly, and that’s a victory for the team in itself. 

Harry wonders, though, sometimes, if the reverse, their reward, is to know how to value the moments of pleasure or belonging more than others; if ordinary existence is both sweeter and sharper in consequence.

Even if that may be true, the litany of the fallen never ends.

***

Tom is formed from a substance that grows brittle and shatters when placed under pressure. The pieces of his life – lives – and legends fall by the wayside. What’s broken can be mended, but it’s never the same again.

*

Zoe’s leaving is a literal flight from a cage, but it’s also an irony – everyone’s happy ending at the cost of nothing but all that she is. She hardly knows how to breathe again when she makes the escape, but she thinks she might be lucky after all; she thinks she can learn.

*

Danny’s final moment is a gift. He ends with a gesture of defiance in the name of love and friendship – and civilisation, in the hope that it exists. Maybe, though, he takes more with him than he gives.

*

They fall, and they fall: Fiona, drawing Adam after her, slowly but surely, together in love and death. Colin without mercy; Zaf stolen away. Jo doing what must be done and asking what should never be asked. Tariq and Ben to betrayal, always the hardest to bear. Lucas isn’t here even before he leaves; he never has been.

*

Ros is the one who cheats death, plays goddess of the underworld, but it’s not a trick they let you get away with twice. She’s always known that, she isn’t surprised.

*

Connie knows all the rules inside out – and she knows how to break them. She’s what they all become in the end, those that survive, isn’t she? She’s not the only one. This is how it ends: death is better than the lie of life and its betrayals.

*

Ruth practices death before she tries it. She’s never sure she’ll get things right. But, as it turns out, death is easy; it was life that was always so complicated.

*

It doesn’t stop, Harry knows, though he stands and survives for the moment. 

There’s always a price that they pay, those of them that survive, and those that don’t.


End file.
